"Police questioning is confidential, ma'am," said the lieu-tenant.
Patricia's hand gripped Jonathan's hard. "You better stay, Johnny," Mike said. "She wants you, that's the important thing."
"Thanks, Dad."
The lieutenant went around to the opposite side of the bed, turned on a large, old-fashioned cassette recorder, and affixed the microphone to his lapel. "Miss Murray," he said in a surprisingly gentle voice, "I'm awfully sorry to have to bother you now, but we find it's best to do this as early as possible so you can get on with the business of getting well without us intruding."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Tom Maxwell. I'm a police officer."
"It hurts, Officer Maxwell."
Jonathan was aware that his mother had gotten another person to come into the room, a man with a surgical smock thrown over his business suit and half-glasses on his face. Obviously he was Patricia's doctor. "This patient has too many visitors," he said. "Perhaps it would be best if you left, Inspector Banion."
"My associate wants to ask questions."
"He can stay."
"Miss Murray, do you remember anything at all about the man who raped you?" Maxwell asked his question softly, gently. A sensitive man.
Patricia stared straight ahead, her eyes glazed with deep inner looking. "I was on the bed with Jonathan,"
she said. She met his eyes. "I had you in my arms . . ." Behind him Mike leaned forward, put his hand on his stepson's shoulder.
The doctor spoke up again, directing his words to Mike. "Please, you really do have to leave."
"After that, what happened? Did Jonathan stay?"
"He . . ."
Jonathan's own mind flashed a violent, confused memory, like a door that opened and shut very quickly on an explo-sion.
They had been sitting on her bed, and there had been some erotic play. He was so excited, he remembered ... Then-a blast of light, a bad dream. Then he was being shaken awake by Mike.
"He left. I made him go home." She smiled at him. "You ought to marry me. Do you want to? I'm a good girl." Tears appeared in her eyes. She was probably afraid the rape had made her undesirable.
"I'd marry you in a minute."
She smiled a little. Silence followed his comment, broken by the doctor. "Inspector Banion, I'm telling you now to leave this room. There are too many people here."
"Look, Doctor, this is a capital case of the utmost impor-tance."
"You aren't asking the questions."
"This case is special. I'm following it very closely." Jonathan felt Mary stiffen beside him. Mike continued. "There may be much more to it than simple rape. A great deal more. Right now the Queens Detective Area rates it priority one."
That silenced the doctor. Even he realized that it would be unwise to obstruct an inspector on a case he considered as major as this one. The lieutenant started in again. "After he left, what happened?"
"I went to bed." She sobbed, closed her eyes.
"And?"
"Oh! All these voices! Then it's-oh . .."
"What is it?"
"Dark! My God, it's dark!"
The lieutenant looked across the oxygen tent to Doctor Gottlieb, who shook his head. "Should I continue?" Watch-ing Mike carefully, the doctor nodded. "Miss Murray, do you remember anything about the individual who assaulted you?"
Jonathan felt her grip weaken, saw her lips open slightly behind the obscuring tangle of tubes. "She's fallen asleep," the doctor said. "All is well."
Mike shook his head. "I don't know what to make of this," he said.
"Obviously it's traumatic amnesia," the doctor snapped. "She can't handle the memory just now."
"It doesn't look like that to me. She-"
"Never mind how you think it looks or doesn't look! When she's stronger you can come back. Maybe you'll have better luck with your bullying then."
Mike smiled. "He asks the questions but you yap at me. What's my problem-bad breath?" He led his lieutenant out of the room. Beyond the window Jonathan could see yet another visitor, Father Goodwin, looking even more pale and cadaverous than usual.
"I have to examine the wound and change the dressing,"the doctor announced. "You can come back afterward,Jonathan."
Jonathan started to get up, but the moment he moved Patricia's hand became like steel again. "Hey, darling, I thought you were asleep."
She didn't answer; she was clinging even in sleep. Jonathan was deeply moved. "Jennifer," the doctor said to a nurse, "get him a mask and gown, will you?" When she was gone, the doctor spoke directly to Jonathan for the first time. "After we're finished, please come into the conference room. I'd like to brief you since you're obviously the closest we're going to come to a next of kin."
Mary and the nurse managed to get Jonathan more or less covered without breaking the contact so vital to Patricia. The surgical mask smelled faintly of iodine.
"I'm Paul Gottlieb," the doctor said as he worked. "I'm your mother's gynecologist. She called me into the case. I have a surgical specialty," he added, as if to further justify himself. Jonathan could not see what he was doing behind the sheets, but a blood-soaked dressing soon came out. "Oh, this looks just fine. This is coming right along. There's been excellent preliminary progress." Then he muttered to the nurse. "I want a pin test, Jenny. There's still cyanosis evident in the legs."
The nurse disappeared down the hall, returning after a moment with an instrument tray. Jonathan did not see exactly which device the doctor used, but from the length of time he spent it was obvious the test was not immediately successful.
"Okay," he said at last, "very good. Now, Jonathan, if you'd just come out with me, I can go over our plans. You're going to play a crucial role in Patricia's recovery, you know."
Coaxing finally got Patricia to release Jonathan's hand. He promised to come back as soon as he could.
As they left the room he saw Father Goodwin go in. He had a pyx in his hand. No doubt, if she awoke more fully, she would be grateful for Communion.
The conference room was as plastic as any of the hospital spaces, blue walls and an acoustic-tiled ceiling into which somebody was in the habit of sailing pencils, two or three of which jutted out of it. There were half-empty coffee cups on the cigarette-scarred Formica conference table. Here and there lay a pencil-marked yellow pad. On one was a doodle of a female foot in a tall spike heel.
"So this is Jonathan." The doctor's eyes shone.
"Doctor Gottlieb delivered you," Mary said softly.
Jonathan was touched. In all his life he had never met this man, had not even heard him referred to. His identity was no secret, it was just that Mother tended to be quite private about female matters. "I'm glad to meet you, Doctor. And I'm awfully glad you're here." He had never said truer words. He was feeling a rush of gratitude toward the physician.
"I want to tell you right now that Patricia will be able to bear children normally. And there will be no loss of sexual function. There will be a vertical scar about eight inches long, but plastic surgery can deal with that if the patient wishes." Jonathan remembered kissing her perfect skin just above the belly button, how sweet it had tasted. "Our major worry is that scarring to the vagina will impair sexual enjoyment for the patient and her partners. But we tried hard to limit that."
"How badly was she hurt, Doctor?" Jonathan had to ask. He found that it was very, very important to him.
"She had extensive vaginal injuries. She has hairline fractures in her pelvis, and one hip was dislocated.She was as severely injured genitally as any young woman I've seen. We can count ourselves lucky that she's going to make a good recovery."
"You make it sound like there might be something else."
"Well, I was getting to that. We don't know for certain yet, but the indications so far are that both of her legs are paralyzed."
Jonathan was stunned. "She can't walk?"
"Not just at the moment, no. But we haven't been able to detect any injury that would cause this, so we don't think that it's likely to be a permanent condition."
"What does that mean? Days? Years?"
"We have no way of telling, I'm sorry to say. It would be premature to take a completely pessimistic view, though."
Jonathan left the barren little conference room and went back to Patricia. He found the priest kneeling beside the bed with his face on his clasped hands, obviously praying. He didn't blame Father Goodwin. In fact he envied him his faith.
When Jonathan came into her view she smiled a vague sort of a smile. Her fingers moved slightly.
He twined his own in them. They stayed like that, the two of them, silent in one another's company. After a time the priest finished whatever prayer he had been saying, and left them alone.
18 JULY 1983.
MOST PRIVATE.
To: The Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Defense of the Faith From: The Chancellor for the Inquiry in North Amer-ica Your Eminence: This is to inform you that Brother Alexander Thomas Parker (b. 12 Oct. 1942, + 17 Oct. 1942, ord.
22 June 1964, Judist, Soldier of Christ, Inquisitor-Captain) has been martyred in the line of duty.
Because he was tortured we must assume his cell to have been compromised.
As a result I have withdrawn the cell from the Night Church Congregation Holy Spirit and am now in the process of regrouping around a new cell leader.
This will result in a period during which we will be intelligence-blind.
The following personnel shifts have occurred: 1. Brother Alexander Thomas Parker, deceased by reason of fire applied to the body by hostile persons. Martyr.
2. Brother Julius Timothy, transferred to Prefec-turate of the West, service in California.
3. Brother George Robert Yates, transferred as above.
4. Sister Marie-Louise D'Aubusson, invested as Captain-Inquisitor, ordered to form a new cell for penetration of the Night Church Congregation Holy Spirit.
Under separate cover please find a request for $2,114.28 to cover travel expenses involved in these changes.
A layperson (Terence Quist, b. 22 Nov. 1933, + 25 Dec. 1933, conf. 5 April 1945, single, K. of C, CCD) in the process of being recruited by Brother Alexander has been abandoned. Recruitment had not proceeded far enough to justify shifting to another operative, and I prefer to let the new Captain-Inquisitor bring in her own people.
Yours in Christ & for the Defense of the Faith, Brian Conlon (Msgr.) Document Class: Urgent A. most private, Swiss Guards courier Destination: Paolo Cardinal Impelliteri, the Hidden Collegium, Prefecturate for the Defense of the Faith, Vatican City.
20 IULIUS 1983.
FURTIVISSIMUS.
Ad: Cancellarius Inquisitionis in Septentrionalis Americanensis Cancellarius Inquisitionis in Septentrionalis Americanensis Ex: Ex: Prefectus Congregationis Defensioni Fidei Prefectus Congregationis Defensioni Fidei We are shocked and saddened by the loss you have experienced. It is especially unfortunate that Brother Alexander had to endure such a harsh martyrdom. We can all take solace, though, in contemplating the peace Brother knows now.
I wish to reassert the wish of His Holiness that Contra Poenam Ultimam Contra Poenam Ultimam is to be scrupulously ob-served. The Night Church may be barbaric, but is to be scrupulously ob-served. The Night Church may be barbaric, but we we are not. are not.
I attach your approved expense report, with the admonition that religious below the level of Monsignor should not have traveled business class.
Also attached is a most distressing report from the Historical Section, written in the seventies of the last century. It appeared in the list of relevant documen-tum documen-tum when we ran when we ran Rituale Pudibunda Rituale Pudibunda Coitus Coitus through the library's database. through the library's database.
Mea Auctoritate, Paolo Cardinalis Impelliteri Document Class: Urgent A, destroy in presence of courier Destination: Monsignor Brian Conlon, Chancellor for the Inquiry, North America, 1217 Fuller Brush Build-ing, 221 E. 57th Street, New York, N.Y., 10022
THE USE OF DISEASE VECTORS BY THE NIGHT CHURCH IN HISTORICAL TIMES.
by Anthony S. Gardner, O.S.
March 4, 1871 (Synopsis) 1. Recent research into the Salisbury Documentum, Documentum, the the Annates Emiliani, Annates Emiliani, and the and the Marque de la Marque de la Templars Templars suggests that the European plague known as the Black Death (1334-1360) spread from three focal points on the continent and one in Great Britain, in addition to the known font in Constantinople. (Vat. Docs. CMXXXIV) suggests that the European plague known as the Black Death (1334-1360) spread from three focal points on the continent and one in Great Britain, in addition to the known font in Constantinople. (Vat. Docs. CMXXXIV) 2. These points were: The Colchester Redoubt in Britain Palazzo Emiliani in Venice The Preceptory of the Hidden Temple in Paris Rennes-le-Chateau in the Pyrenees 3.Three of these locations were in the famous 14th-century strongholds of the so-called "Cathar Heresy,"which is one of the best-known disguises of the Night Church. The fourth, the Templar's House, was the con-firmed world center of the Night Church at that time, fulfill-ing much the same function as their headquarters at Lourdes does today.
4. The Black Death began spreading within a few weeks of the infamous Rituale Pudibunda Rituale Pudibunda Coitus Coitus held between Margaret de Pantera and Carolus Titus at Salisbury Cathe-dral. During this ritual Carolus was killed, but not before despoiling the still unfinished cathedral and killing a substan-tial number of the sorcerers who were attendant at the affair. held between Margaret de Pantera and Carolus Titus at Salisbury Cathe-dral. During this ritual Carolus was killed, but not before despoiling the still unfinished cathedral and killing a substan-tial number of the sorcerers who were attendant at the affair.
5. The period after this is known in the annals of the Night Church as the "Dolorosa," apparently because the first "anti-man," which was successfully conceived in the ritual, was born defective and had to be destroyed. Many more years of breeding between the Pantera and Titus families were needed before a true success could be achieved.
6. The Night Church, which had unleased the Black Death to make room for its "anti-humanity,"was then compelled to do its best to stave off the destruction of the entire human race lest the two critical families themselves be included. Given the primitive medicine of the day, it took them twenty years to completely eliminate the plague they had started.
7. Seven out of every ten human beings on this planet died during the Black Death. It was the most destructive thing that has ever happened to humankind. Whole cities, nations, disappeared into the wilderness.
8. The disease is thought to have been an artificially created hybrid of bubonic plague. Its exact nature remains to this day unknown.
9. Because of the speed of the contagion (about three hours from first symptoms to death) and the rapidity with which it spreads, even modern medicine would be taxed by it, should it appear again.